REVIEW: COUNTDOWN TO LOVE
In 7 Din Mohabbat In (7DMI), Tipu (Shehryar Munawar), a young nerd with dorky spectacles and a flopping lock of hair on his forehead, is in desperate need of love. Thirty one years old and still single, his fantasies of landing the perfect woman has seeped straight into his dreams, manifesting into Ayesha Omer. Bustling with impatient hormones, it is only a matter of time before he flings himself on to a passing dame.
It is a good thing, then, that he has a commandeering mother (Hina Dilpazeer, fantastic in small bits) — a gruff woman who wants Tipu to maintain his bachelorhood because she fears losing him to another woman.
To Tipu, and the audience, she may be an easy hurdle to hop over — in fact, Tipu doesn’t give a hoot about his mother’s whims. To Neeli (Mahira Khan), a ditzy, cheap poetry uttering, orphaned relative living with them, however, Tipu’s mum is the devil incarnate; a hellhound of wrath and fury who runs her around like a maidservant.
Rather than run away, Neeli suffers the mad woman’s antagonism because she is openly in love with Tipu despite being engaged to the local hooligan Naseer Kankatta (Aamir Quraishi, a laugh riot in a few scenes).
7 Din Mohabbat In is a smartly paced, urban fairytale that is remarkably well-structured as a story. And despite some questionable choices and predictability, the movie’s sheer velocity, a compact running time and a strong climax make it a no-brains entertainer
As if in a rush, the screenplay by Fasih Bari Khan (who has written the cult TV-favourite Burnes Road Ki Nilofer and Quddusi Sahib Ke Bewa but also wrote the atrocious Jeevan Haathi) promptly introduces the plot’s main McGuffin: a hobo-looking street magician called Professor Sinbad Jahazi (Ehteshamuddin) who whisks up an ancient magic bottle labeled ‘1935 Delhi’, which puffs out a genie called Dawarka Prasad (Jawed Sheikh).